


Star Rattler

by goodlamb



Category: Supernatural, Treasure Planet (2002)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural (TV) Fusion, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-13
Updated: 2014-03-13
Packaged: 2018-01-15 10:58:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1302394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodlamb/pseuds/goodlamb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seventeen year old Dean Winchester sets himself out on a journey to find the treasure depots of legendary pirate king Crowley, to help his family and to finally step out of his father's dark shadow. He meets the enigmatic cook Benny Lafitte on the ship of their exploratory mission, and finds himself playing a game he wasn't prepared for. (Supernatural Fusion of Disney's Treasure Planet.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Entry for the 2014 DeanBenny Big Bang! Many thanks to the organizers and my artist, happyfunballxd on tumblr!
> 
> This is just going to be the first installment of the story-- mostly setup, sorry! ~~I'll hopefully get the rest posted in the next couple of months once real life has gotten less hectic.~~ This'll probably be more enjoyable if you've seen Treasure Planet, but it's still understandable if you haven't. (And if so I highly recommend it it's a BEAUTIFUL movie; teen angst + space adventure, what more could you ask for?)
> 
> If you have seen the movie, I'm sorry for tarnishing your childhood memories.
> 
> Edit: Sooooo....since writing this portion of the fic I've both started college and sort of fallen out of the SPN fandom? There's a very slim chance of me possibly sitting down and hammering out the plot I had for this fic, but I'd doubt it. :( I'm sorry to leave people high and dry. (In the future I should really just keep to writing oneshots.)

There was a second, a moment, right when the surfer’d push past 90n a minute, when sound was dulled down to a roaring wave, and pressure from the rush would press on your ears, everything around you blurred into a golden crush of light— a second when you were going so fast it felt like you weren’t moving at all. Like you had just been standing on two feet, blazing past the outside world, and then someone had cut your strings and you were just. Floating.

Dean lived for that second.

He closed his eyes and cut his own strings.

There was a jolt as the mag boosters switched off. A big twitch, like the rig didn’t like what he was asking it to do and was considering refusing. But then it rolled, and shuddered, and complied. The only force keeping him close to the ground on a straight path dissolved like smoke in a breeze, and he planted his feet and _flew._ Dean started cackling with the speed as the surfer went loose.

It lasted, like, eight whole seconds before the whole thing spun out and dumped him in the sand.

He hit the ground with a roll and ended up on his back, head spinning, still laughing. Tipping his head back, he watched upside down as the rig sped on for another stretch, spinning in frantic circles as it floated above the desert floor.  It finally tipped and crashed out into the sand with a whine. He winced around the red dirt in his mouth. That would mean repairs in the morning.

Whatever. He grinned again and spit out some dust. Eight seconds was a new record.

And _that_ was when the sirens started up.

∞∞∞

“Yes, well, thank you again, officers, we’ll make sure that it doesn’t happen again.”

Dean wasn’t sure whose grip was stronger, the clunker holding him by the collar, or Mom’s fist squeezing the life out of the warning slip they’d handed her. Wasn’t quite sure which one he was more afraid of, either. Yeah, he was just gonna keep looking down at his shoes.

“SEE THAT IT DOESN’T.”

“Oh, I will, sir, you can _count on it.”_

Mom must have been working on her visualizations or something, because he was pretty sure his neck was getting bruised from the way she was wrangling that ticket. He really should clean his boots one of these days, wow, look at those things.

“OPERATION OF AN ILLEGAL CRAFT IN A RESTRICTED AREA IS IN VIOLATION OF HIS PR-R-R-OBATION. IF HE IS CAUGHT OUT OF CITY LIMITS ON THA-A-A-T CONTRAPTION OF HIS ONCE MORE, IT WILL MEAN MORE THAN JUVENILE HALL.”

The clunker’s partner nodded jackrabbit fast, metal squeaking as the plates of his neck rubbed together. He hadn’t talked the whole time back from the desert—the good for nothing sheriff depo of this town probably couldn’t afford to fix a voice chip.

Dean almost snorted at the thought of the dude miming his way through an arrest, trying to pick up a litterer or something through a game of charades.

A glare from his mother made him think better of it. Hey, look, those shoes again!

“REIN IN YOUR SON, MRS. WINCHESTER. LAWRENCE HAS NO WANT OR NEED FOR POST-ADOLESCENT DELINQUENCY.”

Mary’s eyes narrowed. “It’s Campbell, now, Ms. Campbell. And I raise my son just fine. Perhaps if this city provided more suitable opportunities for its youth, then Dean wouldn’t be forced to conjure up his own.”

If cop-bots came with an eyerolling function it’d probably have been used right then. As it was, the one just made a weird sort of metallic _hum_ , which might have translated to something like “Uh huh. Sure, ma’am.” And the silent one just dropped his rusty head to the side with a whining groan.

“JUST KEEP HIM OUT OF TROUBLE AND OFF OF STATE PROPERTY, MRS. WINCHESTER.” The rustbucket dropped his hold on Dean’s collar and he finally relaxed his neck, shrugging out his shoulders with a scowl. The clunkers turned and left the diner with a series of beeps and boops and flashing lights.

The bots left behind a stark silence. All the customers of his mom’s bustling restaurant were frozen, titillated by the fresh scandal with their coffee cups raised halfway to their varying forms of mouths.

Mary shot him one last look, full of steel, disappointment, and a sentiment of “ _we will be discussing this later_.” He watched as she took a breath to steady herself, and turned back to all of them, surefire smile ready and bright. The diners all immediately snapped back into regular conversation, eating with a little more forced gusto than they had been before.

Dean heard some grey-bodied slug woman mutter something about _the apple not falling far from the tree_ , and he flushed red. Dad getting pulled into the drunk-tank was not the same thing. It wasn’t.

Mom was already off and serving people their omelets and Jupiter grubs. He watched her spin around the diner, grin plastered on, stirring up conversation and good tips and good cheer, like his rig stirred up red dirt as it spun itself down to nothing. Dean sighed.

At least this way he could avoid having that old familiar lecture for a few hours.

He grabbed a tub of dirty dishes on his way out. He could take a load off Mom’s shoulders at least a little. Dean was enough of a pain as it was.

Sammy was in the way back of the kitchen like always, books and diagrams spread out and flashing all over their breakfast table. Dean ruffled the kid’s floppy head as he passed, getting a petulant grumble that made him smile.

“What’cha up to, twerp?” he asked, sliding off his jacket and flipping on the water to start in on the dishes.

“Nothing. School stuff. Were those cops outside?”

Dean sighed. “Those were cops inside, actually.”

There was a thunk from behind him that might have been Sammy dropping his head down on the desk. “ _Dean._ What did you _do?_ ”

“Nothing! Just went out on the surfer. No one got hurt or anything. Those hunks of junk make a big deal out of everything.”

Sam groaned again, and there were a few more small thunks.

Dean waited a second, working at a spot of grease on a pan with the sponge. “But I, uh, got up to eight seconds with the maglev off.” He peered over his shoulder as he said it.

Sammy was looking up, curiosity piqued. He squinted at Dean with his mouth all skewed up, like he was interested but didn’t want to show it. Dean turned back to the dishes, ducking his head to hide a grin.

It used to be so easy to impress the kid, like Dean was his own personal superhero— but these days Sammy’s adoration was rare enough that Dean got all flushed and happy whenever he got it. Which was…lame. So lame. He coughed to force it down, and waited for Sam’s intrigue to overrun his default bitchface.

It took a few seconds, but then… “Eight seconds? Really?” Ahhh, there it was.

“Uh huh. Like riding a bucking bronco or something, man, it was great. Can’t believe people used to fly anything without mag boosters, man.”

That led into a little Sam-esque spin about the history of flightcraft and how magnetic tech made for better speed allowances, yada yada yada. Dean listened as the kid got wrapped up in his own excitement, and smiled fondly as he scrubbed.

∞∞∞

The parade of customers trickled down to a stop sometime after the dinner rush, and the quieter bustle of staff cleaning up the day’s mess could be heard down below. Dean sat up on the rooftop of their home, slash boarding house, slash greasy spoon. The place hardly ever quieted down, but up here he could usually find some peace, just him and the stars and the Crescent Port glinting up above.

Honestly he was just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

To busy his hands, he pulled his tin out from his inside coat pocket, clicking open the smooth, bronze metal and withdrawing a thin slip of rolling paper. He took a good pinch from his pouch of tobacco and cleanly rolled a cig for himself. Rachel Simmons taught him how to do it a few years back—he remembers her bright slip of a grin, her piercings shining, her hands on his showing him how to fold in the flap-- _“If you’re gonna kill yourself, you might as well do it homemade._ ”

He smiled and licked the edge of the paper to make it stick. Those few friends from high school had moved on by now, to bigger and better things, at university, or apprenticing. Dean was still…here. Sitting on his mom’s roof. Watching the stars. Lighting a loosie.

Which was promptly plucked from his hand by calloused fingers.

He groaned as Mary rubbed the cig out on the roof stop slate. She sat down next to him, crossing one leg over the other, sighing as her back audibly cricked in disagreement. He was losing his edge if his mom could sneak up on him like that.

They sat there for a minute, in the quiet, looking up at the stars and the Port. When he was a kid she used to tell him stories about the constellations up there, mapping out the bears and the pitchers and the goddesses with those solid, elegant fingers. Talk about pirates and adventurers, starships and honor and good versus evil, hands conjuring up images as easy as breathing.

She’d point up at the Crescent and say, _“Daddy’s up there, on a job, looking down at us. When he’s done he can just give a big leap and be right back down here.”_ Sam would listen wide eyed from her lap, chubby baby hands clutching up at the bright lights above them. But even then Dean knew it was the same as the fairy tales.

He heard her sigh again, quietly. “What am I gonna do with you, kid?”

He ducked his head down, flushed, and felt her hand come to the back of his neck, playing with the small tail of hair he kept tied up there. She mimed cutting it off with two fingers, like she always wanted to, and it made him smile.

“I don’t know. What am I gonna do with me?” He grinned to take the bitter sting out of his words.

She smiled tenderly, but he could see the worry in it. If there was one thing he wished for his mom it was that she wouldn’t have to worry about him. Just…stop with the effort.

She leaned against his shoulder, twining her fingers through his, him with more rings than her now that she stopped wearing her wedding band. She was looking up at the stars, like she used to. Part of him wondered if she was thinking of those old stories too. But mostly he was looking at their fingers, and thinking how his looked so much more like Dad’s.

They sat there, and after a while it became clear she didn’t have the energy to give him a proper reprimand. He stayed up on the slate tiles long after she’d patted him on the shoulder and gone on inside. He bundled up his old leather jacket (Dad’s old leather jacket, what a cliché) to stick under his head, spreading out and knocking one booted foot over the other.

Tonight felt like a night for sleeping with nothing above his head but the stars.

∞∞∞

Dean caught himself by the fingertips to stop his skid down the roof, feet kicking out at the rough rock to slow his descent. His heart was beating fast as he was jolted out of a swirling dream, one of dust and broken bones, and a little space crawler pulling away from a dock.

He let himself breathe for a moment, thinking he’d woken himself up from a nightmare—wouldn’t be the first time—but then he heard another crash.

_Bang._ Like an engine backfire, only louder, like metal crunching down on itself. He looked up, and the stars he’d fallen asleep to were clouded by the shimmery stream of exhaust and smoke that came from a hurt vessel. He followed its trail with his eyes, and saw a big gunmetal carriage sit down in the far dirt wastes that sidled up to their docks. Well, less “sit” and more collapse—he was glad for once that they had few tenants and the wharf was empty of other crafts. He couldn’t tell if the ship was just a drunkard taking a rough landing or someone in midst of a crash in need of help.

Either way, they’d have need of an inn with some hot beverage and a vid line. Which the _Blackbird_ just happened to have a monopoly on for at least 30 miles.

Dean shuffled down the roof, ignoring the hatch for the stairs and instead just gripping onto the ledge and swinging through the open window below. He landed, boots hitting heavy with a _clomp_ on the foyer’s floorboards, wincing when he knew he’d probably woken up the house if the crash hadn’t done it already.

Sure enough, the door to the bedroom he shared with Sam creaked open, and Sammy toddled out, rubbing his eyes in that way that made him seem all of three years old. Sleepy Sammy was basically the same as Baby Sammy.

“D’n? Wha—”

“Someone might’a crashed out by the docks, I’m gonna go check it out. Get back to bed, twerp.”

“You’re the…twerp. Twerp.” Sam choked through the last word on a yawn.

The hall lit up with the warm glow of a lantern. Mary turned the corner down the stairs from her suite, hair down and messy, white nightgown flowing underneath a heavy flannel bathrobe that he thought must be his Dad’s.

“Did you hear that?” she asked, clutching at her chest, or maybe the old locket necklace she wore even to bed.

“Yeah, a carriage crashed by the pier. I’m gonna go—”

“Back to bed, yes, that makes sense,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “Since I’m going to phone the proper authorities.” He groaned.

“ _Mom_ , it’ll just take a minute! You can call if they actually need help or whatever.” He was already making his way down the stairs as he said it, pulling his jacket over his shoulders. “ _Dean!”_ Mary’s footsteps followed him close behind, and she was still calling him as he swung the screen door open and walked out.

He’d walk the distance to the end of the sand dock under normal conditions, but it was dark, starting to rain a little, and the guy could actually be hurt. The Skitterbug that Sam had inherited from Dean was leaning against the back siding of the inn (damn kid never locked it up), which would do fine. He hopped on the cheap ass drift scooter and buzzed down towards the wooden planks of the docks. A quick look over his shoulder showed Mary leaning against the open door, arms crossed tightly, light illuminating her from behind. Always worrying, her.

He made it out to the crash site in no time at all, chill night wind whipping his hair in his face. The laid down carrier got clearer as he pulled up, smoke rising in steady plumes under the slight drizzle. A shiver went through him. This wasn’t a bad drunken park job. As he pulled up he could make up the twisted metal of the ship’s siding, where it looked like it had been punched through. Plasma cannon?

The Skitterbug skid in, sending up sand even as it hovered a foot off the ground. Dean jumped off, letting it fall to the desert floor and walking hesitantly over the groaning wreck of metal. He could feel the heat from the steaming engine clouding the area.

The lighter he kept on him was really a nifty little multi-tool, something Sam had gotten him a few Solstices ago. It was cheesy as hell, and half the tool hands didn’t work, but one end still had a solar store flashlight. He pulled it out of his pocket, shining out at the wreckage. “Hello? Anyone still kicking in there?” He swallowed hard, aiming the reach of the light at the cockpit of the private transport. It looked like it was a bucket of bolts even before the crash, but now…

“Hey, _anybody there_? You had a wreck! I’m from an inn nearby.”

Suddenly there was a groan separate from the screech of metal settling. Something organic and animal. A survivor?

Dean dove towards the cockpit, pulling the sleeves of his jacket over his hands to shield himself from the hot metal. He tucked his face into the crease of his elbow, squinting his eyes against the smoke as he leaned in.

Someone vaguely humanoid was slumped over the dashboard, groaning quietly. It was faint, but there. “ _Shit motherfuck goddamn fucker, shitshitshit.”_ Faint, and vulgar.

“Hey guy, can you move?!”

There was a movement from the dark huddled figure, and as he moved, moonlight glinted off his skin—rough, patterned in tight risen rings. Bleached colorless by the darkness, but Dean’d bet anything it was a murky army green. An Iguanid, maybe.

Minding his covered skin, Dean scrambled through the twisted doorway of the carriage, climbing over the wreckage to get his footing. He got his arms to the Iguanite captain, gripping him tight by the wool of his coat. The man was solidly heavy, groaning as Dean pulled at him. “ _Fuck,_ boy, I’m dead anyway, we’re all dead, just _leave_ me!” His voice was sodden with melodrama, even under the slither and rasp of his regular speech. Dean rolled his eyes, gripping tight.

As he maneuvered the man out from where he was pinned by the dashboard, the scaled, three fingered hands of the Iguanid scrabbled over the dirty control panel, hissing at Dean while busy feeling for something. Dean grunted. “C’mon, man, you gotta get out of here!”

“Just you wait one goddamn minute, my life’s work is in this shithole, I don’t intend to see it go to waste once I’m gone!” His rough, clawed hands were tearing open the glovebox and little cabinets, even as Dean was pulling him out by the waist. One of them finally closed around something, small and glinting bronze in the low light. He shoved it in his coat pocket as Dean finally got him free.

“The only way you’re gonna be _gone_ is if I don’t get you back to the inn.” Dean walked them backwards, lifting his charge over the broken seats of the cockpit.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, sonny.” The captain pressed his thick fingertips to his stomach. They came back bloody.

Dean looked to where the man had been pinned. A sharp length of torn rebar was sticking out into the cockpit, right where he pulled him out. _Fuck._

“It-it doesn’t matter.” He choked through his words. “We have someone who knows medicine at the inn, we can get you help!”

The Iguanid let out a braying scoff that reminded Dean of a horse, but he let himself be dragged out towards the Skitter. The rain had started coming down harder by then, steady crackling sheets of cold water pinging down on the smoking craft, as well as Dean and his charge. Dean pushed his dripping bangs out of his face, and grunted with determination that was verging on hysteria.

Dean got the man to hook his clawed arms around his waist, and hoisted them onto the scooter, revving up the small engine as soon as he found his footing. They were off, slower and more cumbersome with the added weight of the wounded captain.

Dean squinted into the wind. It was hard to see through the dark and the rain, hard to hear over the crackle of the storm and the buzz of the scooter. He could feel the Iguanid gripping tight against his ribs, but the man’s feet were slipping on the wet metal, falling out from under him and then suddenly finding their place again, before starting the slip and slide again. Dean gritted his teeth. They wouldn’t last long like this. _Just a little farther_ , he thought.

Just then, over the roar of their surroundings, he heard a cough and a shout from the man on his back, who had unhooked one claw to point past Dean’s shoulder. “ _LOOK THERE_ , boy! They’re coming! I tell you, they’re coming for me!”

Dean chanced a look up towards the sky.

Green dots of light, dancing through the dark slate gray of the thundering storm. Glints of metal and emerald starbursts under the haze of cloud cover.

Like the underside of a heavy steamer.

Dean gulped and directed his eyes back in front of him. That transport had been shot down by someone. Dean hadn’t even been worrying that whoever it was might still be around.

He sped up as much as the old, weighed down scooter allowed. They were already by the end of the docks. _Almost home safe._

There was a sudden boom from behind them (above them?), not unlike the noise that had awoken them—God, it seemed like hours ago now. Dean’s steering faltered for a moment, and he felt the Iguanid slip and slide and hold on tighter. He tightened his grasp on the handlebars of the Skitter— _almost home, almost home—_

An explosion of light, of sound—no, an actual explosion, a fireball in front of them, all around them. A crash louder than anything he’d ever heard. Dean looked up, and where the sky had been dark and gray and empty _,_ it was now filled with metal, with ships: two or three, maybe four that had descended on them since that first boom. The captain behind him was moaning with despair. Dean looked back to the inn, _right in front of them, right in front of them—_

There was only fire.

Dean lost his hold on the scooter ( _he hadn’t turned off the boosters, he wasn’t in the desert, what was happen—)._ His feet slid out over wet metal and splintered wood, and he felt the captain lose his grip on Dean. They crashed onto the broken foyer of the inn entrance, landing with a groan, _fire, so much fire_.

Dean was on his feet before he knew what was happening. He had to get to them. He had to get to them.

He was ready to sprint, ready to run but there was—there was something pulling him, he—

He looked down. The Iguanid had one clawed hand wrapped tight around his ankle, another reaching up to grab onto his coat by the pocket. Dean could see blood trickling down the slit of his mouth, his eyes wild with the fire (God, the _fire_ ) reflecting in them. “It’s the goddamn _cyborg_ , boy! _Watch out for the godforsaken cyborg! WATCH OUT!_ ”

Dean frantically shook him off. He might have kicked him in the jaw. He didn’t look back to see.

He was through the burning archway of his home, up the cracked and smoldering stairs. The curtains had caught, the lacy tablecloths in the hall. Wallpaper was turning to ashes around him, and there was the smell of burning glue.

The structure was still standing but for the gaping hole in the eastern side, the walls up and stable for now—but the long shining dining hall, the lobby he and Dad had painted together when Mom was still pregnant with Sam, the ancient welcome desk Sam helped him rebuild. It was all burning. Burning.

Dean felt like he collapsed up the stairs, or floated, anything but walked. He couldn’t remember taking a single step, but suddenly he was there, by the window he’d swung through earlier that night.

And there was Sam.

He wasn’t yawning like he had been before, but screaming, mouth open wide with hurt cries of fear and panic. He wasn’t wearing any shoes.

Dean had him in his arms, over his shoulder, before Sam had even registered him there. But the screaming bit off with a yelp. _Safe. Safe._

He turned towards her staircase, panicking at the thought of putting Sam down to get to her, but it was like a twisted replay of the earlier night. She was there, hair and eyes wild, no robe or lantern, just panic and a box clutched tight in her worn hands. They got their arms to each other without speaking, and made to get down the main staircase.

Until suddenly it wasn’t there anymore.

The stairs were collapsing, stairs he’d walked up every day of his life (they were _good_ stairs, he thought inanely, insanely.) He and his mom met eyes, his arms still wrapped tight around Sam’s middle, hoisted over his shoulder.

Sam was a tough kid, strong and better than him in just about any way he could think of—and he was crying now, quietly, hands clutching at Dean’s back, at Dad’s jacket. Dean couldn’t breathe, and he could see the smoke rising in plumes that would make that literal soon.

There was a problem he could tackle. “Any guests left?” he asked, voice not shaking somehow. Mary shook her head, frantic. “The last of the staff left earlier, it’s just—just Chuck.” Her eyes widened as she realized where their uncle would be, and they both looked down towards the lower floor of the inn. All flames and falling walls.

They couldn’t just stand there.

Dean moved toward the window that led to the slate roof he’d slept on (God, that couldn’t have been in the same night, it couldn’t have it couldn’t have) and yanked it open, bringing in the thundering sound of the storm and the piercing whoosh of the descending war ships. Fucking _war_ ships.

But the roof was clear, and still standing.

“We’re gonna have to roll down!”

Mary’s eyes were still wild, but immediately resolved. She followed him over the ledge of the window, helping him get Sammy’s legs through.

The roof was just as shabby and leaning as it had been earlier, but their feet knew it better than anyone. He was planning in his head—they were only a story or two up, there was a row of well-kept hedges they could fall into, if they didn’t hit the pavement. He could feel Sam looking down against his neck, shaking and clutching ever tighter at Dean. He pushed a hand into the kid’s mop of hair and made him hide his face in the collar of his jacket, hushing him. He breathed in. Breathed out.

Stepped, carefully, to the edge, and looked down.

And there was—

Chuck. And his carriage.

What?

The big eared doctor leaned out the window of his transport, glasses askew on his wide nosed face. “ _Jump down, for heaven’s sake, don’t you know the inn’s on fire?!”_ The tarp cover of the bulk of the carriage would be just enough to…

Dean met his mother’s eyes, and saw the determined wildfire glow in them.

They leaped.


	2. Chapter 2

 

Uncle Chuck was one of those uncles that were in no way shape or form related to you. Years ago he’d indefinitely rented out one of their better rooms as a makeshift workspace; Lord knew what he actually did up there. He said he was a doctor that used to run a practice, but now he was some sort of professor, or writer or something. Lawyer? Inventor? Entrepreneur?

Whatever-- he had a lot of money, and wandered around in his bathrobe a lot. He balanced the inn’s checkbook and filed their taxes for them every year, for the reasonable price of free Aardvark Pancakes for the rest of his life. (Sammy had invented that menu item when he was four. They had antlia plum raisins and chocolate syrup on top of piled flapjacks, to look like an anthill. They were disgusting.)

Dean closed his eyes against the glass windows of Chuck’s study. There was no more menu, no more taxes, no more inn. Who knew if there ever would be again?

Mary was having a mug of tea with Chuck on the other side of the room, talking furtively over their drinks, probably about the fire and what to do, what to _do_. After Dean had done his part, getting Sam out of the fire, taking care of him and Mary, getting Sam settled into a spare bed at Chuck’s apartment—well, after that was finished it seemed his part in adult matters was over.

They’d managed to land safely on the tarp hood of Chuck’s carriage, only ending up with minor scrapes and bruises from the two story drop. He’d taken off before they could even properly get inside the thing, but at that point, getting away from the fire by any means necessary seemed like the best way to go.

They had sat, huddled up on the roof of the carriage, wind whipping too fast to hear or speak, and watched their home burn in the distance behind them.

“Chuck, really, this is just too much for you to do—we’ll find a place to rent in the city until we can…until we can work something out. I’ll make it work.” Mary had broken their quiet whispers with an exclamation, refusing charity like she always would. Stubborn old Mom.

“Nonsense! You can’t really think I’d kick you and the boys out on your own? After all the _Blackbird_ has done for me over the years. Really, Mary, it’s an insult.”

They started squabbling over how Mary would pay their way to stay in Chuck’s city loft, how she could work around the house or something, how Chuck wouldn’t hear of it, how they were family—

Dean didn’t fucking _care._

“ _Excuse_ me, this is all very interesting, but can we please discuss whoever it was that plasma bombed our goddamn home?!”

The room fell silent.

“Language, Dean.”

He felt like _screaming._ Instead there was a moment’s more of silence, before Mary cleared her throat, putting down her steaming mug of tea.

“I don’t know and I don’t really want to know, Dean. It could have been any number of things. Being this close to the Space Port—you know how much crime comes through there. They could have been raiders, looking to steal money we didn’t really have; maybe people that knew your father…” She swallowed hard around that one. “Whoever it was, I don’t want to get any closer to them. I don’t want us wrapped up in whatever they’re about. I don’t want to be _near it._ ”

She cleared her throat again, and finally looked up at him, eyes blazing. “So excuse me if I’m going to try and tackle the problem of where we’re going to be _living_ , where Sam is going to be _sleeping,_ and where your next _meal_ is coming from, _before I start in on why our lives always seem to go this way!_ ”

There was quiet again.

Dean scowled, and scuffed his feet, looking down. She was right. She was right, but she was wrong.

“But it wasn’t any of that, Mom.” He moved closer to them, wanting to be taken seriously for just once. “It had to do with the captain that crashed. There were people after him, bad people, it sounds like—”

“All the more reason to stay away from it!”

He groaned in frustration, shoving his fists into his pockets to stop from hitting something. Not his mother, not anyone—just _something._ “This could be important. Don’t you wanna know _why_ , I need to know _w—_ ”

His hand closed around something in his left coat pocket. Something cold, something metal and hard and small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. He froze, and thought back to the Iguanid gripping him by his coat. Distracting him while he…

Dean would bet anything that the thing in his pocket would sparkle bronze in low light.

Chuck and Mary are looking at him. “What is it, Dean?”

“His whole life’s work. His life’s work, he said, said that he wouldn’t let it go to waste—he said that before he—!”

“ _Who_ did, Dean? What are you talking about?”

“The captain! The Iguanid captain, I pulled him from the wreck, I was trying to save him, but all he cared about, all he cared about was getting that—”

He closed his fist around the smooth sphere in his pocket, pulled it out.

“All he cared about was this.”

Dean held it up to his mother and his not-uncle. It was about the size of a baseball, smooth, dull bronze, with grooved markings around its surface like tattoos on skin. It was beautiful, in its own way.

There was a moment of silence, where he could feel his mother’s raised eyebrow more than see it, before he heard Chuck gasp. The man rushed over to him, arms flapping about his face. Dean’s instinct was to pull the thing away from him, whatever it was—that captain was willing to die for it, and even if Dean hadn’t known him very long or liked him while he had, that had to mean something.

But even with Dean gripping tighter on the little sphere, Chuck didn’t make a grab for it. His thick fingers came close and hovered around it, bringing his face in close to inspect it, but never touching. Like he thought if did it would melt.

“Do you know what this _IS_ , BOY!? DO YOU?”

Dean was stuck in Chuck’s big-pupiled, dog-eyed stare for a moment. Usually Uncle Chuck was too passively apathetic to get up and shout about anything. This was the most animated he’d ever seen him.

And then suddenly he was plunking the thing out of Dean’s hands.

“ _Hey!_ ” Chuck was off across the room, muttering to himself and pulling books down from his shelves.

“I’ve been studying spatial topography for a _decade, thousands_ spent at collector’s auctions and Net meetups and everyone all shouting at once, ‘ _oh, I’ve got it! It’s been up in my attic for years, passed down from my great aunt’s cousin’s cousin! Just send your payment here!’”_ Chuck flung a book over his shoulder and Dean ducked to avoid it.

“All this time and energy and money spent, and it ends up in Dean Winchester’s coat pocket.”

Dean wanted to go after him but Chuck was already tearing around the room, looking for whatever he was looking for. He didn’t know how Chuck would react if he got in front of him, like how you don’t wake up a sleepwalker.

“Dean? Dean what was that thing!?” Mary is shouting from behind him, tea and argument forgotten.

He turned to her. “I told you, I pulled that Iguanid captain out of the wreckage. His ship was blasted just like the inn, and the people that blew it up were after him!” Dean swallowed. “He must have slipped that in my pocket before I ran into the house.”

“Ah HA!” Chuck had pulled a heavy volume out from one shelf or another. “Here it is. The Archive of all archives. The _map_ of all _maps,_ Dean, gods, don’t you know what you were holding?”

Chuck tossed the sphere back to him. The map?

“I’ve spent my entire career looking for that thing. My entire career. Picked up and moved my whole life, spent nearly half my family’s fortune. The _Blackbird_ lays in view of a strategic point in the solar system, intersects with the Stolberg line of recession and the Great Dark, and on clear nights you can see the whole goddamn—point is, I’ve lived where I’ve lived and done all I could with the sole purpose of getting my hands on that thing. And now you have it.” Chuck laughed, a little hysterical. “Nearly gave up. Nearly gave up! Started looking into other career paths, publishing the speculative romance pulp under a different name, I—”

“ _Chuck!_ ” Mary had had enough, evidently. “What _is_ it? Is he right, is that thing why they took down the inn?”

Dean was playing his fingers over the grooves, feeling out the rounded smoothness for a give, while the two of them shouted. A map. More like a puzzle.

“It’s the stuff of legend, Mary.”

That was two people now who said they’d devoted their lives to the thing. People had been killed, his home had been destroyed over this little ball. He was right, it was important.

“Haven’t you ever heard of High King Crowley?”

“Oh, what, the Pirate King? That’s a children’s story, I used to tell it to the boys. What’s that got to do with anything?”

“It’s not just a story, Mary.”

Handling it made him feel like he was tinkering in his shop, only he was holding something more than scrap metal. Something big.

“He and his crew traveled farther in the universe than any other explorer! And they plotted it, they plotted everything on Crowley’s personal archive. Something only he could access.”

Parts of it had different feels to them…if he could _just_ …

“Just the information on it could be worth millions, but where the map _leads—!_ ”

The sphere clicked, and suddenly the dim, cozy study of Chuck’s apartment held the glow of the universe.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Stepping foot onto the actual ground of the spaceport, onto the riveted white metal of the landing that gave the port its glow when seen from down below…even if Dean had never even been off-world before (hardly even been outside of _Lawrence_ before), it felt like coming home.

He’d been looking up at this glowing metropolis his entire life. The hub of their entire sector, biggest wharfs and dockstations for a million miles. This was where the first big rig flyers were built and thrown into empty space. Where the Flight Academy called home. The port he’d covered with his thumb as a kid, telling Sammy he’d make it up there one day.

Dean breathed in deep, taking in the heavy tang of fuel and the stale sweat of a few hundred thousand people working and living. Even the things he hated in Lawrence were things he could see himself loving here—the clamor of the busy inn grated his nerves, but he marveled at the sounds of life moving on the port. The shouts of a million languages, the grinding gears of a thousand ships, the buzz of electric lines, the splash as someone dumped a bucket out of an open window.

And behind him, the heavy, clunking steps of an idiot, in an idiot suit.

Dean hid a grin. “I told you, that guy was scamming you, you really don’t need to be wearing that thing.”

“ _What?_ I’m SORRY, DEAN, I CAN’T QUITE SEEM TO HEAR YOU!” Chuck was decked out in what must have been thirty pounds of space junk, complete with fishbowl headgear, something a shopkeeper had told him was “vitally important equipment for any professional space traveler!”

Chuck had bought it hook, line, and sinker; but then again, the only time he’d been off-world was in the upper class travel liners that took the stinking rich from place to place. Dean had to smile at the guy, hopping around, foot caught in a weighted metal boot that had some inexplicable tubing surrounding it. Dean didn’t even think it connected anywhere.

In his head he could hear Mary chastising him for laughing at the guy. He shouldn’t be so dismissive of Uncle Chuck’s money, no matter how he chose to spend it. It was the only reason they were actually here.

It had taken time, too much time, to convince his mother to let him travel with Chuck. The professor had frantically started charting plans and making calls almost as soon as he’d gained back bodily function—after staring, mouth agape, at the map that Dean had unleashed in his quiet study.

A treasure map. He still could barely believe it.

The truth was, Dean would have gone off on his own with the thing if he couldn’t go with Chuck. Dean thought Mary had guessed that.

“LET US BE OFF, DEAN! WE SHOULD GO AND GREET THE CREW BEFORE LAUNCH TIME!”

After pulling Chuck towards the actual direction of the ship he’d paid for, they started the long, clanking process of moving through the Crescent Port’s crowded dock alleys and streets.

Dean could already feel his skin breathing for the first time in what felt like eons. He didn’t know what would come of this excursion of Chuck’s. Maybe they wouldn’t find this mystery planet where Crowley stored his treasure. Maybe they wouldn’t find the lost lands and dwarf planets that Chuck was hoping to rediscover. Maybe they wouldn’t recover enough funds to pay for the inn’s reconstruction, like he hoped.

But even if they came back, heads hanging and hands empty, he would still be somebody who had _seen_ something, done something, been somewhere. For the first time in his life he didn’t see his future charted out ahead of him, bleak, and trapped, and small.

He breathed in deep, twisted the ring on his thumb, and pushed through the market crowds.

∞∞∞

The first thing their ship’s captain said to them was, “Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit, someone swindled you good to get you in that get-up.”

Her secondhand of the E.S.S. _Roadhouse_ made a cackling noise in the back of his throat from beside her.

The second thing was, “I’m Captain Harvelle, people call me Ellen but you can call me Captain Harvelle.” She grinned, sharp, pointed canines glinting—Harvelle was a Felinid, where Chuck was Canine. That should be funny in coming months.

“This is my First Mate for the _Roadhouse_ Mister Singer.” Singer wore a trucker’s cap over his stony skin, gray and rocky, the mark of a Saxum man. Sam had a short lived obsession with the rock-hewn people of the war torn Saxis; they had evolved to blend into their planet’s grey, stony landscape. He would have to take a picture with the guy to show him.

“Take a picture, kid, it’ll last longer.”

Dean looked up to see Mr. Singer looking dead at him, avalanche of a brow raised over his eyes. Friendly eyes, though, he thought. Dean flashed a grin. “Was planning on it, sir.”

“Ah, yes, speaking of which, can we discuss why you’re toting a teenager halfway cross the galaxy, Doctor Shurley?”

“I’M SORRY, WHAT WAS THAT?”

Captain Harvelle sighed, exasperated, meeting eyes with her rocky secondhand. Dean had a feeling that she and his mother would be fast friends, if they met. So far, the crew of this ship wasn’t what he expected, none of the tight-laced, proper Academy stuff—he liked ‘em a hell of a lot more than he thought he would. Even if they were calling him a “teenager.”

Meanwhile Harvelle had moved to unscrew Chuck’s fishbowl of a helmet, her claws clacking on the glass.

“I was _asking_ why you selected someone who can’t yet sprout facial hair as your spaceworthy companion.”

Dean frowned to himself. He could grow facial hair. If he wanted to.

“Well, Ms. Harvelle—”

“That’s Captain, _Doctor._ ”

Chuck made a regretful grin, nodding in her direction. “Quite right, quite right, sorry. Dean here, you see, is the only one who can read our map.”

Harvelle’s slitted eyes widened, and flicked towards him in a new light.

He resisted a smug smile. Well, he didn’t resist that hard.

After he’d opened the map in Chuck’s study, it had only taken him a moment or two to figure out how to close it again—but no matter how long he tried to show Chuck where to place his fingers, where to push and twist, he made no progress. Mary couldn’t either. Dean, for whatever reason, was the only one who had no trouble.

It had become a point of persuasion in trying to get Mary to sign on to the trip, alongside the “this will be a character building experience!” line that Chuck fed her. Some combination of the two worked.

A week or so before leaving, he walked into his room to find Sammy fiddling with the shining sphere (he shouldn’t have been surprised that the kid had found it in that secret nook he’d found in Chuck’s guest room. The little snoop.)

“I thought….” He’d sniffled. “I thought that if I could open it, I could come too.” He looked up at Dean, big eyes pleading. “I can help, Dean! Please let me come!”

Dean felt an ache in his gut, standing there in the Captain’s quarters. He wanted to pull Sammy to his side, wanted to reach out and find him right beside him like he always had—but a trip like this was no place for a twelve year old.

Captain Harvelle had him demonstrate, twisting open the map with ease, before insisting on trying herself, and then letting Singer try his hand. He kept his smirk to himself again.

“Fine. The boy is necessary. But the sphere will stay in the safest place that exists on this ship, and that’s right here, under lock and key.” She was locking the map up in her bureau before Dean could protest, and then Chuck was shaking his head at him not to. He huffed. _Fine_. It would be safe there, that was all that mattered.

Too much had been destroyed over the thing already.

With that, Harvelle smiled, wide and catlike at them.

“Welcome to the E.S.S. _Roadhouse,_ gentlemen. She’s served me well over the years. You can put your trust in her.” Her eyes flicked to Chuck, darkening for a moment. “Though I can’t speak to this crew you’ve assembled.”

Chuck pointed his nose in the air, affronted. “They came very well recommended.”

“Yeah, by Satan himself I’m sure,” Singer muttered gruffly.

Harvelle slashed open a grin once more. “Whatever the case, you’d best get yourselves acquainted. We’ll be in tight quarters in the upcoming months.” She looked them both seriously in the eye. “You need to trust the people you sail with, gentlemen. Make sure you do.”

They nodded, because a response felt necessary.

She gave a slight eyeroll. “We launch at 0800 hours. Bring me our navigation, Doctor Shurley, and be prepared for travel.” She said it with a gleam of anticipation, and Dean couldn’t agree more.


	4. Chapter 4

The ship had to spend the night in dock, making last minute adjustments and picking up supplies, having Chuck sign for a lot of things that he agreed to with the flippant air of the comfortably rich. Dean washed his hands of it—it wasn’t his place as resident “teenager” and map-monkey.

It gave him good time to meet the crew, though. And the ship.

Though he’d later think only one was really worth knowing.

Chuck had scuttled off to his private quarters once they rose above deck, saying he had preparations to make and that he’d meet the crew later. Dean went exploring. He’d only ever seen a ship like this in the storybooks he and Sam used to read, all dashing stories of pirates’ camaraderie and a champion’s heroics. He made sure to snap pictures on the little drive Mary had given him so he could show the kid when he went back.

The ship was structured like most travelling vessels were these days, built in layers of natural material (sturdy, well-crafted wood and the like) overtop  the circuitry and piping that allowed for all the mechanical systems needed for travel. The hydraulics, the magnetic drive, the gravity neutralizers, the nav system, the atmo support. He watched a crewman pull up a hatch of the heavy wood paneling to get at the wiring below, tinkering at it with a wrench and helmet light. It made his fingers twitch like they did in his home shop, wanting to dive into this ship and see what made it tick.

Dean looked away and ran his hand over the polished oak of the railing. Even with all the metal and bits making up her core, he’d read that nothing really beat wood for long travel.

And then the crew.

Harvelle and Singer were right. Satan himself, most likely.

They were a rough and tumble crowd, Mary would have said.

There was a set of Scorpio twins, black and shiny and twisted, that served as fighters, oarsmen, gunners—“ _Whatever dirty work the nice Captain dearie sets us to,”_ Alistair told him, “ _you pretty thing.”_ Dean felt his skin crawl, and fingered the blade at his belt. Alistair’s brother Azazel was close behind, and quieter—they never seemed to be far away from each other. But his glowing, yellow eyed stare and the click of his mandibles were unnerving enough.

A human named Victor ran the sails. He didn’t seem to like the look of Dean. Stared him down until Dean flashed a grin, and backed away from the guys’ territory. No need to start anything on the first day out.

There was a bunch of old timers that hung about the the weapons hold and armory; one, with the bulging eyes of a Slugform, wore the robes of a medic, and another, something Rodentia related maybe, looked like he needed medical attention himself. They sat around, smoking and eying the crew while everyone else worked, but no one really seemed to call them on it. Of the four, the tall, gangling one with the sharp look of a Mantis man, looked to be of the highest station—and he was the only one that bothered to look Dean’s way.

Dean kept his head down, and moved on.

A close set of three women took care of carpentry and mechanical needs. That is, if you could call them all women—Ruby, Meg, and the little one. The former two might have been Reptilian, he couldn’t be sure: they were a matching set of hard features, long black curls, and deadly looking smiles under red, red lip coloring. But the third...

She stood between them, always, he noticed: protected by them to either side, but also at the centerpoint, almost…in leadership of the three.

She was also about seven years old, and less than 10% human, he’d wager.

There were meant to be restrictions on how much cybernetic work could be done on a living person, meant to be failsafes in place to make sure no one ever crossed that line from animal to machine—he had no idea what the guidelines were when it came to a little girl.

The girl was cold dead eyes in a shining chrome face. There were patches of pale skin still visible, places that hadn’t been plated in whatever had been done to her. There was just enough scalp left there to let curling blonde locks fall down from her face in ringlets.

It didn’t help much.

“What—What is she?” he asked. He winced, in his head. Mary would scold him for the rudeness.

“She’s _Lilith_ ,” Meg sneered, “and she’s the best goddamn mech expert this side of the solar system.” She and Ruby flashed twin wicked smiles. “You’d best show some respect.”

“ _That’s all right, Meggy._ ”

Her voice was a grating chirp that rang like broken bells. It had the high lilt of a child’s laugh, but it was twisted, an imitation that didn’t quite work right. Her face tilted, eyes blinked, mouth smiled with perfect baby teeth, but on a second or so’s delay. Dean couldn’t quite suppress his shudder.

“ _I like him. He’s pretty._ ”

Her delicate metal hands, spindly and buglike, reached up for her companions’. She forced them to turn, with more force than her size would denote, and pulled them away, skipping stern side. She turned her head back for a moment, smiling. “ _See you, Deanie-bear._ ”

Words from the Iguanid rang in his ears. _Watch out for the cyborg._

Garth—ship musician, fuel monkey, and general idiot that had been picked up along the way—filled him in during supper later that evening. “She’s not as young as she looks. Probably about as old as the other two—they’ve been with each other forever.” Garth looked nervously about the mess hall, probably looking out for the girls.

“Oh shut up, Garth, don’t talk out of your ass.” Jo sat across from him at the table. Of all the crew he’d met, she was one of the few he’d liked so far. Sharp as a whip, with the wicked toothed grin of her mother—he’d been nervous about talking too much with the daughter of the Captain, but something told him that she wasn’t one to snitch. He laughed as she threw a spoonful of peas at Garth’s head.

“I’m serious! I know things. She was in some sort of accident when she was a kid, the way I hear it; some rich parents that fixed her up, maybe fixed her up too much, stopped her from growing properly. I think she’s added upgrades over the years—obsessed with tech. She _is_ a damn good mechanic.” He gulped, looking down at his stew. “I’m never looking to get too close to her, though.” He shook his head. “You never know with cyborgs.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fyi, most character descriptions and alien species are inspired by the movie-- most are animal influenced, and Dean doesn't think any of them odd


	5. Chapter 5

That night, Dean set up shop in his assigned bunk. He’d expected to sleep in the crew hammocks below deck, but apparently his relationship with Chuck afforded him his own room. He could feel the appreciation that act of nepotism would get him from the crewmen—the Scorpios watched him make the climb up to his quarters with even more venom than they had that morning.

It really wasn’t anything to envy. The room was more like a closet off to the side of Chuck’s quarters—the walls were thin enough that he could hear the professor’s snores and occasional barks through the wood. But the cramped space made it feel a little like home, reminding him of the attic loft he’d called his own in the _Blackbird_.

A shiver went through him as he remembered that place didn’t exist anymore.

He shook it off, unpacked his bag and the few mementos he had with him. Mary had managed to grab some of the family heirlooms and photos out of her chamber before they lost them in the fire, and before the trip, she tucked a couple of the ones he liked into his bag.

He taped up one of a younger Mary, a candid shot of her grinning and spinning through the lobby of the inn, before the place had become more of a workplace than a place of love. Beside it he put up the one of him holding Sammy, missing two front teeth and wearing Starfighter cartoon pajamas as he tried to hold the wiggling toddler in his arms. John might have been taking the picture. He wasn’t sure.

He laid back on his creaking bed with the tablet he’d brought with him, to start in on his first letter to Sam. He made Dean promise to write a letter _every day_ , and tell him _everything_ that happened. The serious stare the kid had fixed him with as he made him double swear and shake on it made him smile now.

Dean detailed the sights of the Crescent port, their Saxum First Mate, even some of the tamer details about the scary crew, with a note not to tell Mom but to give her his love.

Sending even the short note came with a surcharge that made him wince. And that was just from the docks. Sending a letter every day of travel might not work out when it came down to it.

Dean toed off his boots, laid the tablet down, and shut off the lamp beside him. The dark room vibrated with the quiet noise of the sleeping vessel—snores and creaks and clinking pipes. He sighed, unable to relax.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone to bed without seeing the twerp. Or kissing his mom good night. Maybe he never had.

He huffed and flopped over onto his back. Just couldn’t...get comfortable.

Above him the ceiling of the quarters was the same wood paneling of the floorboards, and the walls. Beneath them he knew ran the wiring of the entire _Roadhouse_. But between the cracks, there was a faint light that made the room glow a little.

Crouching and then standing up on the bed, which groaned greatly in protest, Dean was able to touch the ceiling with his fingertips. He balanced himself on the creaky mattress, and then got both hands above him.

He felt for a latch, the same kind he’d seen crewmen pull all day, seeking it out with his fingers.

It gave, and the panel swung in, opening up to the stars.

He flopped back down from standing up, bouncing a little as he settled.

Above him glowed the nebulas he’d seen all his life, from the roof of the _Blackbird_ or out in the desert. He was surprised at how little the sight actually changed. It was just missing the giant thumbnail of the port he was sleeping on.

The sight was a comfort. As was the thought that maybe Sam and Mary were looking at the same stars, miles and miles below.

Dean drifted off , flat on his back, with stars in his eyes.


	6. Chapter 6

Take-off was like everything Dean had ever hoped for.

They rose to the raucous noise of an airhorn before dawn. The ship was a rush of noise and movement and shouts across the deck, last minute adjustments being made, equipment being strapped down, stocks being checked and rechecked. It was like the busiest day the inn had ever seen, only on a massive scale. And on a boat.

“Do something useful or get out of the way, boy!” Singer shouted, rushing past him with two heavy cargo crates cradled easily in either hand. Dean skidded out of his path in time, but landed against the wall beside Victor, the flightdeck man. He was calmly adjusting knobs and levels and switches on the control panel beneath another wooden latch, barely giving Dean a glance as he caught his breath and stared.  

“Do you need help with anything?” he asked. He did want to be useful. Something about the way Mary raised him made him uncomfortable sitting idle while others worked around him.

Victor lazily raised an eye to him, assessing, making Dean squirm, but he held his ground. The man nodded to himself, and then gruffly pointed him to the heavy mast.

Dean watched the sun rise over the Crescent as he tied sailor’s knots over the beams of the ship deck.

At 0800 hours precisely, the Captain made her appearance on the aft balcony.

“Ladies and gentlemen, it will be a pleasure to sail with you all,” she said, solid and dignified, with a nod towards the crewmen down below.  “Mr. Singer, sound the horn for takeoff please!”

At the heavy ringing of the foghorn, the ship gave a heavy, grinding jolt, gears turning as brakes were released and the wharf’s locks clicked open. He could feel it, through the body of the ship. Even the most irritable of the crew gave up a roaring cheer, fists in the air. Dean felt himself taken up in it, grinning wildly and stepping up onto the mast for a better view.

The shimmer of the atmo protection rose in like a mist overtop them. There was a hum and a steady cranking sound as the _Roadhouse_ slowly rose into the air. Dean laughed, feeling lighter and brighter than he had in a long time.

Literally, lighter. As the ship rose, with the crew shouting and noise wild, the gravity stabilizers of the Port slowly gave way, and the fainter ones of the ship kicked in with a buzz.  He felt his feet grow lighter, hair rising from the top of his head, and he held on tighter to the mast.

He watched, star struck, as the hefting mass of the ship steadily climbed.

Soon enough, they let go of the surface of the Crescent with a gently bump, and pushed off. 

There was another roaring cheer as they advanced into the inky black beyond the Crescent’s atmosphere, and Dean understood that this meant real flight. True flight. Even if everything stopped right now, he could call himself a space traveler.

Dean laughed as they sank deeper into the dark of space, not a glance wasted for his home below.

∞∞∞

Captain Harvelle called him into her quarters for a confirmation of the nav directions. Dean opened the sphere, easily, watching her watch him. That Feline stare put him a bit on edge, but he tried to hold his ground as he had with Victor. He came onto this ship as the kid nephew of their professor financier. He’d thought about it all night— he needed to earn their respect.

After the map business was done, Dean nodded and turned to go, assuming the meeting was done. But he was stopped by Harvelle’s call.  

“I hope you’re not expecting just to louse around waiting for us to need a map opened,” she said to his back. He turned to her as she went on. “You’re part of my crew— you work, just like the rest of us.”

He tried to stop from puffing up like he wanted to, but he couldn’t help but be a little affronted. “I’ve been working in my mom’s inn my whole life, I’ve got no problem with that,” he said, brow furrowed.

Suddenly the Captain sliced that grin of hers again, the one that made him think he’d backed himself into a corner.

“An inn, you say?” She blinked purposefully, pink nose twitching. “Then you’re accustomed to kitchen work, I assume?”

∞∞∞

“Kitchen work. I’m going half across the galaxy and I’m still going to be washing goddamn dishes.”

“Oh, the horror, Dean Winchester forced to scrub a pan while he gets to witness the endless wonder-filled expanse of space travel all day and night.”

“I’ve been scrubbing pans my whole life—and you’ve been seeing the expanse of space all _your_ life! How is it still wonder-filled?”

Jo laughed, a hearty sound that had her tail rising and curling over her shoulder as she did so. “That’s a dumb question, and that’s how you talk about it, anyway. Just stop your whining, you sound like Garth. There are people who would kill for your position.”

“Which is what, exactly?”

Jo was as bad at hiding a smirk as he was. “Cabin boy to the head cook, of course.”

She took off laughing down the length of the dock, steps sure and light-footed as she dodged the towel he threw at her.

He stifled his grin and descended the stairs to the kitchen and mess hall. He’d been eating there every meal so far, but the food was buffet style and in hearty abundance, no servers or anything. It was hellishly good, too, so even if he’d talked with the kitchen staff he was probably too distracted to notice. They were the last people he’d yet to meet.

The hall was different when it wasn’t meal time, starkly quiet and cooler without all the bustle. It had less ornamentation than other parts of the ship, letting the bare bones of her frame shine through, piping revealed along the rafters beside all the natural wood. Light shone through from above the slatted ceiling, casting strange patterns of shadow on the rows of picnic-style benches, lighting up the dust in the air.

Empty, it reminded him of the mess hall reserved for staff at back at the _Blackbird_ , the one guests never sat in. He had to blink a few times to clear his head and his eyes, before moving towards the back kitchen of the hall, behind a closed metal gate.

“Hello? Anyone down here?” His call rang out and stopped at the exposed wood with an echoing thud. No reply. “The Captain sent me down, I’m supposed to work with you for the duration.”

Quiet.

He reached out to shake the bars of the gate.

Suddenly a buzz of movement caught his eye, a blur of color, at about chest height. He spun around to try and follow it with his eyes. The thing was looping about the big hall in wide circles, a cooing sort of noise emanating from the smear of color. Dean threw his arms up—had a bird gotten in?

He took a second to internally smack himself: yes, of course, one of the many species of _space birds_ that took to travelling on cargo vessels.

It circled around towards him, still buzzing as it went, and Dean backed up blindly, hitting the benches of one of the tables with the backs of his knees.

As he sat down with an _oof,_ the blur crashed into his chest.

He put his hands up with a quick reflex, and managed to grab it for a moment before losing hold. It made a squawking sound as it buzzed off again. It had felt like—like a soap bubble that didn’t pop, or something. Smooth and gooey and amorphous, but his hands were clean where he touched it. Where’d it _go?_

He looked up at the sound of  a buzz.

Circling over his head, the thing was moving at a slower speed, so he could actually make out its shape. Not that it really seemed to have a shape. It was light, translucent blue, like a blob of water floating mid-air.

A blob with eyes.

“Don’t be swatting him, now, he’s not a pest, he’s a pet, there’s a _difference_ , lad!”

The call came from across the room, accompanying the clank of metal and the thud of heavy boot steps.

Dean looked up to see one of the biggest men he’d ever seen crowding under the low roof of the mess hall.

He had the big build of an Ursid man; the wide, hairy face of one too. But there must have been enough human in the mix that he wasn’t covered in it like a pure Ursidae would be. A solid gut behind a dirtied apron, stocky shoulders, thick legs.

Thick leg.

Singular.

The right one had the chinking, dull metal of an old synthetic—not as shining or as new as Lilith’s upgrades, and less elegant too: more moving parts visible that kept him standing up right and moving with a heavy gait.

It took Dean a second to notice that the opposite arm was the same—a big, heavy upgrade of a thing, bicep done in a hydraulic fashion, supporting the heavy arm and peg-like fingers that looked clunky, but were probably deft and versatile.

Another cyborg on the ship. How many could there really be?

Dean took all this in in about a second. He stood up as soon as he got his bearings, trying not to stare. Lilith was one thing, she seemed to take pleasure in being gawked at; he’d have to work with this man for the rest of his time on board the _Roadhouse._

“What is it, then?” He looked back up at the thing above his head, which was swimming languidly through the air at a lazy pace, little blob of a body wiggling as it moved. Big, big blue eyes took up what seemed like half its body mass, and they hadn’t looked away from Dean.

“His name’s Cas. I call him Cassie. He’s a li’l Morpho I picked up a few years back—a runt of the litter, I get the feeling. Might have a screw loose if you ask me.”

The thing—Cas—floated down to an inch from Dean’s face, big eyes staring brightly.

The cook laughed. “And he likes you. That’s pretty rare, boy, you should be flattered.”

Cas chirped and started buzzing about again, whipping across the room, and then suddenly changing in midair. Changing into _him_.

A little four inch high model of Dean, complete with coat and hair pulled back, stared back at him, floating and wiggling and chirping the same way Cas had been just a moment beforehand.

Dean laughed. A Morpho. Sam would love it.

Cas shifted through a few more phases (an orange, a boot, the cook’s tattered bandana that he wore over his wide head—all equipped with the shining blue eyes of the Morph’s little face) before chirping, circling around Dean’s fingertip to tickle for a moment, and then darting back to the cook. He came to a rest alongside the man’s thick neck, vibrating a little but the calmest Dean had seen him yet.

Dean stepped forward to greet the man he’d be working for. He stuck his hand out.

“I’m Dean Winchester. I came on board with the Doctor funding this whole thing—the Captain set me up to work with you.”

The cook took his hand with the one that was still human, a big maw, thick fingered and calloused as it swallowed Dean’s rough hand up. He gripped tight and shook it roughly, chuckling deeply all the way. Cas cooed in what sounded like amusement from the man’s shoulder, though he could have just been imitating.

“And what in seven hells’ did you do to get on her bad side like that?” The man laughed, robust and loud. “She doesn’t send anyone down here to the cookery. You must have done something.” He was still shaking Dean’s hand.

“Name’s Benny, Benny Lafitte. I do all the cooking here. I take late nights, early mornings, and long naps—I’ll expect you to keep up.” He grinned, a wide, hearty shape on his rough face. “If you can’t, well, we’ll do what we do to all troublemakers here on board—out the airlock with you!”

He laughed again. Still gripping Dean’s hand tight. He was beginning to lose circulation. “Don’t we, Cassy, don’t we go right out the airlock with those cabin boys that can’t make ends meet?” he cooed, scratching Cas’ little chin with the metal pegs of his free hand.

Dean might be out of his depth.

**Author's Note:**

> Edit: Sooooo....since writing this portion of the fic I've both started college and sort of fallen out of the SPN fandom? There's a very slim chance of me possibly sitting down and hammering out the plot I had for this fic, but I'd doubt it. :( I'm sorry to leave people high and dry. (In the future I should really just keep to writing oneshots.)


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